If it’s good for the goose, it should be good for the gander. It’s common sense.

Mississippi lawmakers several years ago changed the qualifying deadline for candidates to sign up for election to the Legislature, moving it back from March to July.

Along with giving challengers a smaller window for name recognition, lawmakers gave themselves the upper hand at winning re-election.

The deadline schedule change did not spill over to the county district level, however, and candidates for supervisor and other seats across 82 counties are forced to throw their hats in by early March.

Every 20 years, that presents quite the conundrum, one in the news locally now as Warren County supervisors attempt to come up with a plan for redrawing district lines that make them equal in representation on the county board where its five members are elected every four years. The new lines are necessary because every 10 years, the heads are counted via the U.S. Census and in a mobile society, that means numbers change.

With census counts still coming in, there’s no way for incumbents, candidates or voters to know in early March exactly where the district lines will be, where votes will be cast or even who might meet residency requirements for candidacy in August primaries and November general elections.

Maybe the deadline doesn’t need to be pushed back for every four-year election, but it makes good common sense for a change every 20 years — when the census report and qualifying deadline are so closely aligned.

If that happened, maybe the number of redistricting challenges and election do-overs of recent years would not have to be. Maybe candidates and even voters would be less confused.

After all, if it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander. It’s also common sense.